The Argentine No-Till Farmers Association (AAPRESID) is a non-profit, non-governmental organization born out of a strong desire to protect farmers’ most valuable resource - the soil. The association is made up of a network of farmers who have adopted and promoted a new agricultural paradigm based on no-till practices. CHACRAS SYSTEM is a program created by AAPRESID to meet the technological needs of farmers and technician groups in their work environments, based on an integrated analysis of their production systems. Through its two spaces, CHACRAS and Thematic Networks, it serves as a platform for knowledge generation and transfer, in addition to training human resources. It combines a “learn by producing” approach, which uses real-life scenarios and solution proposals, with an interactive network that enhances farmers’ experiences through scientific knowledge, entrepreneurial vision, and institutional support. Learn more here.

Since 2017, a group of producers and agricultural companies in the Pampas Region of Argentina gradually started adopting technologies developed by the Data Intensive Farm Management (DIFM) project to conduct on-farm experiments and obtain a deeper learning about within-field spatial and temporal variability of crop response to ag inputs, such as nitrogen and plant population. This region-wide network, coordinated by Dr. Agustin Pagani, independent researcher and president of Clarion, Inc., has rapidly expanded to other regions of the country where less science-based information to support fertilizer recommendations is available. The “checkerboard design” is the base of this effort, a methodology based on precision agriculture technologies to generate affordable, scalable, and statistically robust data to help farmers maximize input use efficiency site-specifically. Learn more from Juan Martin Rompani’s presentation “Conducting research along with farmers”. 

One PhD research assistantship is available immediately in the Department of Plant Science and Landscape Architecture at the University of Connecticut, Storrs, CT. The project focuses on evaluating variable rate fertilizer management strategies using on-farm precision experiment, cutting-edge digital agricultural technologies, and data analytics. The applicants must have a B.S. degree (M.S. preferred) in Precision Agriculture, Mathematics, Computer Science, Soil Science, Agronomy, Environmental Science, or closely related fields. Please contact Dr. Haiying Tao (haiying.tao@uconn.edu) for additional information.

Aare, Ane Kirstine, Søren Lund, and Henrik Hauggaard-Nielsen. “Exploring Transitions towards Sustainable Farming Practices through Participatory Research – The Case of Danish Farmers’ Use of Species Mixtures.” Agricultural Systems 189 (April 1, 2021): 103053. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.agsy.2021.103053.

If you happen to sit at your desk over lunch and are browsing Ted Talks to learn something new, you may want to watch OFE videos. A list of e-presentations from the #OFE2021 prepared by Myrtille Lacoste: